Introduction

by monk

On August 13th of 2013, the first wave of Hearthstone Beta keys were released to the world. Since then, constructed play in Hearthstone has experienced many twists and turns as the best decks shifted every half month or so. In this article, we are going to take a look at the defining decks of each period and how the metagame formed around them. Let's reflect on how we got to today with the important tournaments, people, events, and patches of 2013.

Rogues, Rogues Everywhere

Mid August-October 2nd

In the beginning, it seemed fairly clear that Rogue was the top dog. With archetypes such as Spellpower Rogue, Weapon Rogue, and Miracle Rogue, there seemed to be more viable Rogue decks than there were of all the other classes combined. The core problem with Rogue was the efficiency in its extremely cheap cards. Backstab, Shiv, and Eviscerate were some of the best -- most cost effective -- and most annoying cards to deal with in the game. Of course, none of these compared to the power of a turn 1 coined Defias Ringleader, the single most complained about card in the game during the first stage of the beta. This play was such amazing value that it often provided an insurmountable tempo advantage.

Three of the most frightening types of Rogue. Note that the second two lists are made with patched cards. Since then, the mana costs of Shiv and Conceal have been increased by one.

Not only did Rogue have these early game advantages, they also had the power of Conceal to their name. The infamous Miracle Rouge deck was a prime example of abusing this mechanic to the best of its potential, powering up Questing Adventurers, Mana Addicts, and Edwin Vancleef to their fullest. The draw engine of Gadgetzan Auctioneer let Rogues could draw their entire decks. The deck was nigh unstoppable if Rogue got the right pieces; as such, it nerfed to the ground in the next patch.

Druids Quietly Awaken

Spellpower Druid and Ramp Druid. These particularversions were created by Sylas and sp0h respectively.

End of September-October 2nd

Although not nearly as complained about as Rogues, Druids were pushing to the forefront near the end of the first Beta patch. Druids were a powerhouse with their endless removal options, extreme versatility, and powerful creatures. Also important to note is that at this time Priests -- the natural predator of the Druid -- were extremely weak. So while at the top of the ladder, there were many Druids, Priests were quite a rare find.

The two big types of Druids included Spellpower Druids and Ramp Druids. Both were featured prominently in one of the only tournaments of the time, the first 2P Hearthstone Invitational tournament. Even though Druids were doing so well at the top of the ladder, there were very few tournaments to show off these decks. These Druid decks, therefore, didn't disseminate to the masses nearly as much as Rogue did.

On October 2nd, the biggest patch yet to hit the Hearthstone Beta went into effect. It brought drastic changes made to nerf the strongest classes -- Rogue, Druid -- and at the same time, drastic changes made to buff the perceived two weakest classes (Priest, Warlock). To get a chance to see how significant the changes were, let's take a look at each class' changes in detail

Rogue got a blanket nerf, taking away many of its best tools. One of Rogue's best spells, Shiv, went from one of the best spells in the game to a very mediocre one. Defias Ringleader, one of the best minions in the game, got hit with the nerf hammer as well.The most important nerf was that to the Rogue Hero power, which greatly reduced its versatility: especially when combined with other weapons and also Blade Flurry. Nerfs were made to Spell Power Rogue (Dalaran Mage), Weapon Rogue (Captain Greenskin, Captain's Parrot), and especially Miracle Rogue (Conceal, Headcrack, Edwin Vancleef). Overall, most players were in agreement that Rogue had severely crippled.

Druid shared a similar fate to Rogue. The main problem with Druid was that it had too many removal options and was too versatile. The nerf to Savagery took away one of Druid's three area of effect removal options while also severely weakening Claw and Bite. As for the versatility, a common problem when facing Druids was that they could sometimes just shift gears and go for the face at any given time. Their arsenal of damaging spells included Claw, Wrath, Bite, Swipe, Starfall, and Starfire: this spellbook was comparable to that of a Mage. Nor can we forget Ancient of Lore's healing for 8 option, which was almost strictly better than Guardian of Kings' heal for 6. The only questionable Druid nerf was Cenarius, but quite honestly, he's still decent at 9 mana as well. Finally, and as with the Rogue, Captain Greenskin and Dalaran Mage were nerfed to scale back Druid dominance.

The funny thing about these nerfs is that -- although both Rogue and Druid suffered a dramatic drop in usage following this patch -- today they are once again regarded as two of the top classes. Meanwhile, those that got the biggest buffs this patch -- Warrior and Priest -- are both regarded as two of the worst classes.

Everything looks fine and dandy here until you take a closer look at the new Battle Rage. With it now including damaged heroes, Battle Rage, at minimum drew around three cards when used. And when comboed with cards like Whirlwind, it was not uncommon for Battle Rage to draw 5+ cards. This card was so efficient that it alone made Warrior into one of the best and most popular classes to play on ladder. It was so imbalanced that Blizzard released a quick fix for the card two weeks later in the second Hearthstone Beta patch.

Priests certainly got the biggest buff in this patch, and it was no surprise as Priest was widely regarded as by far the weakest class in Hearthstone, with about half of its class cards being near completely useless. Even neutral cards such as Injured Blademaster and Lightwarden were buffed to make Priest more viable. In all, these were great changes and we'll talk more about Priest in the next section. But for now, I'd like to make this one amusing note. Imagine if Greater Hea l(Heal 2 HP for every card in your opponent's hand) had never been changed to Holy Fire. How great would that have been versus Frost Giants Mage and Freeze Mage, deck that routinely have 8+ cards in their hands?

Age of the Priest

Try to run this deck now,I dare you.

October 2nd-Late October

Directly after the big patch, everyone was running similar types of the decks: unrefined midranged decks without much focus. The perfect stage was therefore set for the dominance of Priest. The Priest's game plan was simple: survive until late game and then dominate with Mind Control. Simple enough, right? Northshire Cleric routinely drew more than one card, both Shadow Words seemed unfair when they killed minions regardless of current life, and Shadow Madness was often two or three for one. Priests seemed to have it made and well-made Priest decks seemed invincible.

Slowly, but surely though, players began adapting to the Priest metagame with small changes. Four-attack creatures grew extremely popular, as Priests had an extremely difficult time removing them. Some of the best minions in this category included Chillwind Yeti, Dark Iron Dwarf, and the infamous Argent Commander. Decks also began capping their minions' mana cost at around 6 mana, thus removing any efficient Mind Control targets. Often times, Priests would only be able to grab an Argent Commander without its Divine Shield at best. Finally, Faerie Dragon found a profound increase in usage, as it was immune to all Priest effects and could easily take out Northshire Cleric.

All this still it wouldn't be enough. Priest still held the title of the best class for the entirety of October. Not only that, but they were an extremely frustrating class to play against. They were the cause of much frustration on Reddit and to dethrone Priest, a few major revolutions would have to come.

Note that while Priest was considered extremely strong during this time period -- and it did extremely well on the ladder -- no one actually won a major tournament with Priest. I've therefore included an example of a typical Priest deck found during this time period. Note the complete lack of respect for Aggro decks and the abundance of 4 attack creatures in an attempt to optimize the mirror matchup.

OTK

October 2nd-Late October 19th-Late October

Solitaire at its finest.

The first threat to the Priest deck came in the form of Hunter One Turn Kill. Showcased prominently by ChanmanV in TLOpen #1, this deck aimed for a burst of surprise damage in the form of low mana cost beasts and Unleash the Hounds. Most midrange decks -- and other decks that didn't carry Taunt -- were powerless against the rush of Beasts. The Unleash the Hounds deck became the signature Hunter deck and to this day remains the only Hunter deck to have won a tournament.

Although this deck delivered quite a shock to the metagame, decks adjusted themselves and adapted to this new potential threat quite easily within a week or so. Decks either added more Taunts or became more aggressive in order to pressure the Hunter. In order topple Priest, something bigger would have to come into the scene.

Interlude: Blizzcon Innkeeper's Invitational

November 9-Late November

Before we move on, we should take a brief break to talk about the Blizzcon Innkeeper's Invitational. This was an event that invited eight of the most popular Hearthstone personalities to play Hearthstone's biggest stage. It was also the most viewed Hearthstone tournament ever with over 100,000 concurrent viewers. So even though the skill level wasn't the highest possible in terms of constructed play, and the decks were two weeks behind the metagame, the decks played at this event were widely copied.

The big winner here was Paladin, and it was by far the most widely used and successful class at the event. Since Artosis won the event, his Paladin was probably the most copied deck in the following weeks. For example, in TLOpen #3, played on November 16th, one week after the Blizzcon Invitational, Paladin represented 21% of all the classes entered into the tournament even though Paladin had no other results to show for itself. The effects of the Hearthstone Invitational could be felt as far off as in early December, when Paladins flooded the 2p NA vs CN tournament, but were easily the least successful class in terms of win rate.

The deck on the right, used by Blizzcon winner, Artosis, was fairly popular directly after Blizzcon. Against the masses of Warlocks and Rogues at the time, it did not fare quiet so well.

The Twin Decks of Board Control

Early November-December 10th

On November 2nd, two of the most influential decks ever to appear in the Hearthstone scene met each other in a 11/02 Managrind NA Finals. In one corner was curi's Board Control Warlock, the standard upon which Warlock decks are built upon to this day. In the other was Kithros' Board Control Rogue, also the grandfather of today's Rogues. Though Kithros took the win that day, both decks were revealed and the netdecking frenzy began.

Controlling the board

First was the era of Rogues. Why Rogue and not Warlock? I suspect that it has a lot to do with the fact that Kithros beat curi in that one Managrind tournament and people rushed to copy the winning deck. If that finals result had been flipped on this head, the metagame might have developed quite differently. Nevertheless, Rogues once again began placing in many Managrind tournaments, only one month after they were supposedly nerfed to the ground. See:

In addition, Rogue players topped the NA ladder two weeks in a row, first Kithros, then Rallied, using a Kithros clone deck. The Board Control grabbed hold and it wasn't likely to let go any time soon.

since 2013.

Then came the era of the Warlock. Though Warlock was quietly gaining popularity throughout late October and early November -- winning the Reddit Bragging Rights and Myth Gaming tournaments -- it was not until November 18th that the Warlock explosion truly began. It was on that day that curi released his Board Control Warlock guide and since then, it has become possibly the most imitated deck in all of Hearthstone. A list of tournaments it has dominated include the following:

Together, these twin decks introduced the era of board control, one that was devastating for the Priest. Priests simply could not keep up with the speed and tempo play of the new metagame and they very quickly fell from being the top dog to one of the worst classes. Suddenly, all the other classes shifted their focus to a single question: could they beat the two board control decks? Those that stood a decent chance --Mage, Shaman, Pally, and Druid -- rose to become the top tier classes. Meanwhile, classes that seemed to have very little answer to these decks -- Priest, Hunter, and Warrior -- fell to the bottom half. See our December Power Rank for more details.

The Core

Early November-December 10th

After Rogue and Warlock became prominent, a disturbing trend began arising in the Hearthstone scene. Players noticed that these two decks had a lot of shared cards: the best neutral cards in the game -- which I like to call "the core" -- were 14-16 central minions. No matter what class, if you started with the core and added in some class cards, you'd get a pretty decent deck; granted, some classes were way more successful than others. In addition to this core, there were many more cards that were also very common including Faerie Dragon, Knife Juggler, Loot Hoarder, and Bloodmage Thalnos. Of course, Rogue and Warlock used this core the best, but Shaman, Paladin, and especially Mage also had similar results with this list. The obvious problem here was that the game was stagnating. Neutral cards were simply too good and every deck looked like the next. Something once again had to change.

Mages Strike Back

Late November-December 18th

The next step in the evolution in Hearthstone came in Mage form. Throughout Hearthstone, Mages have been the most consistent class and never far from the top. Finally, it was time for Mages to pull away from the pack and become the best class in Hearthstone. Around this same time, three separate Mage decks emerged from the shadows. The common thread was that all of them had either favorable matchups against the top classes: Warlock, Rogue, and Shaman. These three decklists were the Aggro Mage, the Frost Giants Mage (popularized by Doge House), and the Pure Freeze Mage.

Three equally dangerous decks.

Together, these three decks allowed for Mage to become the most dominant class Hearthstone had ever seen. How dominant? Well, shortly after these decks came into popularity, both the NA and EU Managrind tournaments were swept by Mages in the same weekend. That is, the top four of both tournaments consisted entirely of Mages.

Control classes -- such as Druid, Shaman, Paladin, and Priest -- were faced with an entirely different problem. Their dilemma was that they could either skew towards anti-Warlock/Rogue with Board Control cards or skew towards anti-Mage with healing cards and anti-Giant cards. For example, cards like Wild Pyromancer and Baron Geddeon were great against Aggro decks but fared very poorly against Mages. Meanwhile, cards like Healing Touch and Holy Fire were great against Mages, but didn't do nearly as well against Warlocks and Rogues. Every card that was changed in any of these control decks made them better against one of these decks and worse against the other. There was never a deck found that was over 50% against both style of deck.

As an interesting side note, Hunter saw a very slight resurgence, because they could be an effective counter against the Freeze Mage and Giant Mage decks as they shrugged off the freeze area of effect spells and had Flare to deal with Ice Block.

Before we move on, let's take a brief look at the 2p CN vs NA tournament, specifically the NA qualifier. This tournament was the first open tournament that featured a substantial prize pool. Entry stated you had to be in Masters 3 and e-mail the tournament organizer to enter, the barrier of entry was probably quite high. The player pool, therefore, was probably the highest level ever for an open tournament. What a great place to get a snapshot of Hearthstone metagame!

As we can see, Mage, Warlock, and Rogue were indeed three of the most popular classes in the tournament. Meanwhile, the aftereffects of the Blizzcon Invitational could still be felt in this tournament almost a full month later, with Paladin being the third most popular class. We can, however, also see that Paladin usage dropped drastically after the first few rounds: signaling that Paladins were having a poor win rate in this tournament. Of the top four classes, Paladin was the only class that saw a decrease in usage from the Ro128 to the Ro32.

What exactly was nerfed? Hunter, Warlock/Rogue board control decks, and Mind Control. With this patch, Mage lost a counter in Hunter and some of its fiercest rivals in Warlock and Rogue. The first repercussion of these changes was that board control versions of Warlock and Rogue all but disappeared from the scene. Instead, only extremely aggressive versions were being run as they stood a much better chance against Mage.

Also standing against Mage were the reinvigorated Druid and Paladin classes as both of these classes could run healing-based decks that countered Mages quite well. With the nerf to Mind Control, these classes were also free to run big creatures such as Ragnaros and Tirion Fording. It was in this week-long period that decks like Koyuki's Paladin became a strong choice, as it was a good answer to both Mage decks and other control decks without being a total wash against aggro decks.

A non-balance related change found in this patch was the addition of the new ladder system, which introduced a competitive ladder. With this change, ladder instantly grew much more challenging and top players got a better idea of what other top players were running. Ideas spread much more quickly and innovations and ideas began to spread much more quickly.

Warlocks Return, Warriors Emerge

How viable willWarriors become?

December 18th-Present

Then came the Antimage Patch, a patch that took an axe to all the Mage's area of effect freeze spells.

Predictably, Mage usage dropped drastically; and with it, the best check against Warlock suddenly fell off the grid. Warlocks once again ran rampant and were the main question on everyone's mind: can I reliably beat Warlock? If the answer was no, it was back to the drawing board. The top decks in this age included Warlock, Druid, and Rogue, simply because they could deal with Warlock most reliably.

The rise of Warrior decks was another interesting side effect of the patch. The most popular of the Warrior decks all have some kind of One-Turn-Kill component, either with the Charge card or with Warsong Commander. Both these cards, when pushed to their limits, allow for upwards for 30-40 damage in a turn. Common combo components with Warrior decks include Molten Giants, Raging Worgen, Alexstraza, Gorehowl, and Bloodsail Raider. Though very few players would dare to rate Warrior as an absolute top tier class, these combo Warrior decks have proved themselves to be surprisingly viable and might hold a lot of promise for the future of the class.

So here we are at the end of 2013. Throughout our journey this year, we've seen the metagame consistently changing every week or so and the top dog deck being replaced just as often. A new year awaits us around the corner and Hearthstone hasn't even been released yet. Warlock might be the dominant class today, but who knows what innovations or patch changes 2014 will bring. Who knows? Maybe even Hunter will get a chance in the spotlight one day. Nah, probably not.

I actually find that warrior deck to be really boring to play, and it's easilly exploitable because it requires a long time to be able to one turn kill. Well, most molten giant based decks are really boring to play for me. Good recap.

And it's not that good against warlock neither, the lock just has to stack his power overwhelming and soulfires to one turn kill you instead.

Wasn't the 2P CN vs NA finals where Druid started becoming popular? The NA qualifiers didn't see much, but there was a lot of druid in the final itself. I had the impression that the resurgence started there.

On January 01 2014 06:22 hunts wrote:Good read, thanks for the article. Though I am a bit curious as to what the warlock decks look like now after all the patches.

We'll have a guide in a few days.

On January 01 2014 08:10 Iceman331 wrote:Wasn't the 2P CN vs NA finals where Druid started becoming popular? The NA qualifiers didn't see much, but there was a lot of druid in the final itself. I had the impression that the resurgence started there.

They were getting slightly popularity then, but most Druid lists back then were used to counter Mages, and not particularly be amazing all-around. Back then, it was very difficult for Druid to check both Mage and Aggro decks, although it was possible to check one or the other.

Also, I want to get a sense of how much the community follows the constructed metagame. I think these results will be really interesting. Vote here!:

On January 01 2014 08:10 Iceman331 wrote:Wasn't the 2P CN vs NA finals where Druid started becoming popular? The NA qualifiers didn't see much, but there was a lot of druid in the final itself. I had the impression that the resurgence started there.

They were getting slightly popularity then, but most Druid lists back then were used to counter Mages, and not particularly be amazing all-around. Back then, it was very difficult for Druid to check both Mage and Aggro decks, although it was possible to check one or the other.

Also, I want to get a sense of how much the community follows the constructed metagame. I think these results will be really interesting. Vote here!:

And it is fairly anti-aggro focused. The only card there that is really anti-mage is the Healing Touch as far as I can tell. What are current Druids running that is significantly different from this? Apart from removing the healing touch and adding in probably a 2nd Sunfury, there isn't that much more you can do to make this defensive. Maybe add in Sen'jins? I haven't really been closely following deck changes for the past couple of weeks, so I'd be interested to see if there is a new development here I have missed.

I see what you are saying about how hard it was to deal with both aggro and Mage at the same time, but one of the things I really liked about this deck was that if you run into something more lategame focused than you, it's possible to play fairly aggressively by using the Druid of the Claw in charge form and silencing the Watchers instead of taunting them. It's less than ideal, but at least you have an option.